It could all be so easy. He could go back to Regina for more than a weekend at a time. He could finally get that insurance broker's licence. He could have dinner with his family without being interrupted by urgent phone calls from his staff. No more interviews. Riders games. No more Question Period prep. Walks in the park with the dog. No more door-knocking. A simple, stable, suburban middle-class life.
However frequently Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer thought this before the 2019 election, he must be thinking it a lot more often now. Since that disappointing night, he has seen the confidence of Red Tories, social conservatives, and party grandees slip away. Two of those grandees have been whispered about as potential successors. Meetings with recent failed candidates have been cool, if not outright hostile. His attempt to make a clean break by firing two top staffers, neither of whom appear to have made any specific blunders, has been met with howls. Columnist after columnist asked how, not if, he will make his departure.
At the time of this writing, the temperature in Regina is -3°C. It would be positively refreshing compared to the heat rising slowly beneath Scheer. In the absence of any stories involving overt racism or sexual relations with livestock, the boil can only be slow, unless he gets out of the pot while he still has his dignity. If his downfall is imminent, it will begin with…
Leadership challengers, internal and external. As far as anyone knows, any such threats are only theoretical at this time. The worst-case scenario for Scheer is that one of them turns out not only to be actively operating against him, but is a well-respected figure within the party with a history of prodigious fundraising who diverges from him on a file where he has publicly and repeatedly slipped up. This person would have a better chance of attracting quality staff than any young upstart, as well as the support of…
Top Conservative caucus members. Loyalty to a party leader is only as strong as the leader. Ambition and self-preservation are far more potent forces in politics. If an alternative to Scheer presents him or herself, he may start to see members of his caucus find pretexts not to accept shadow portfolios, or to resign from them soon afterward. All he could offer to counter a strategic refusal is a bigger portfolio, and this would be assuming they haven't already secured a promise for one of these from a leader-in-waiting. And if the shadow cabinet goes, so may go…
Convention delegates. By now, Scheer should have someone tasked with gathering notes from riding association meetings across the country. It is here where delegates are chosen to vote in the mandatory leadership review at the party's convention in Toronto this spring. Those who are able to sit through these gatherings on a regular basis only do so to further political goals of their own. (I tried it once. Believe me, nobody goes for the food.) Depending on what they hear from their MP, those goals are even easier to redirect in someone else's favour. Reports of an increase in discontent at the riding level would spell the most serious doom for Scheer, and they would be substantially more difficult to counter if they reach the ears of…
The press. And I'm not talking about commentators. We're not very helpful, whatever Liberal chief of staff Katie Telford might have hinted. I'm talking about parliamentary reporters who have to file by 10 p.m. five times or more a week. They're the ones who receive information on background that leads to unflattering, if vague, news hits. The more of those there are, the more they lower Scheer's esteem in the eyes of…
The public. They've already made their opinion of Scheer known in the clearest way possible: by not making him Prime Minister. Most of them will know nothing of internal party machinations. But their eyes may flick over an unusual number of headlines suggesting that his control as leader is fading. Any open attempt at unifying the party after that will only look desperate, because it will be desperate.
All of this assumes that Scheer won't find a way to outmaneuver his enemies at every turn and that there are enemies to outmaneuver in the first place. But who would help him? He can't rule by fear like Stephen Harper, nor command admiration like Rona Ambrose. He can't even give his closest staff a reason to trust him. He may be better off returning full-time to the loving embrace of the six humans and one dog who won't leave his side.
Photo Credit: CBC News
Written by Jess Morgan
